Wights are dead men or creatures raised up by the Others, seemingly when touched by the cold that accompanies them.[1] Anyone who falls against the Others must be burned, or else the dead will rise again as their thralls. Fear of their own dead becoming wights leads the free folk to burn them.

Contents

Appearance

The appearance of wights depends entirely on the condition of the corpse when it is raised. Some are lifelike, while others are badly rotten although the process of decay has been halted. All are easily identified by their eyes having turned bright blue[2][3] like two blue stars[4] and their hands and feet black and swollen with pooled and congealed blood.[5]

About

Wights are supposedly attracted to warm blood[Citation Needed] and will attack with surprising strength. Unlike the Others they are slow and clumsy.[6] Wights have a queer, cold scent that can panic animals if they catch a wiff of it.[4] It appears that wights retain at least some of their former memories.[1][7]

Being dead, wights feel no pain and will continue to fight regardless of injury.[4] Though they can be stopped by total dismemberment, their limbs will continue to move if detached from their bodies. When a wight is destroyed, the blue disappears from its eyes.[1][4]

Wights appear to be able to remain in a state of stasis, such as outside the hillside entrance to the cave of the three-eyed crow. The snows have buried most of the dead men, but they remain frozen and waiting.[8]

Wights are flammable and will be quickly consumed if set aflame.[1] It is unknown at this time whether wights can cross the Wall on their own, although corpses brought through the Wall can apparently still reanimate as wights. Burning corpses appears to prevent them from being reanimated by the Others to become wights.

It is stated in The Seven-Pointed Star that spirits, wights, and revenants cannot harm a pious man, so long as he is armored in his faith.[9]

A Storm of Swords

During the Battle of the Fist of the First Men, the Night's Watch is unable to defend against the wights that are sent against them. In a crushing defeat, the majority of the Night's Watch who fight on the Fist are slain by the insurmountable odds.

Those who survive are led by Lord Commander Mormont on a grim march back to Craster's Keep. Samwell Tarly notices that there are no attacks by the Others or the wights while they are there.

Coldhands saves Samwell, Gilly and her son when they are beset by wights, some of whom had been men of the Night's Watch. One of those wights is Small Paul, who Samwell tries to stab with a dagger made from dragonglass. The dagger shatters against Small Paul's chainmail.[4]

Wights are monstrous, unnatural creatures. Abominations before the eyes of the gods. You … you cannot mean to try to talk with them?[13]

”

Jon replies,

“

Monsters they may be, but they were men before they died. How much remains? The one I slew was intent on killing Lord Commander Mormont. Plainly he remembered who he was and where to find him ... My lord father used to tell me that a man must know his enemies. We understand little of the wights and less about the Others. We need to learn.[13]

”

Jon later goes down to the ice cells where they have four living men and two wildling dead men, whom he had almost forgotten. He had hoped to learn something from the bodies, but the corpses stubbornly remained dead.[14] When Jon decides to move the living men he instructs Bowen Marsh to leave the corpses. Jon thinks he will need to burn them eventually, but for the time being they are bound with iron chains inside the cells to hold them harmless.[14]

Cotter Pyke sails towards Hardhome by the command of Lord Commander Snow. By rescuing the wildlings Jon hopes to prevent the Others from raising an enormous army of wights by killing the thousands of wildlings stranded at Hardhome and raising them as their thralls. Jon knows that if the Others manage to do this the wights will head for the Wall in their hundreds and their thousands. When Cotter arrives at Hardhome he sends a report to say there are dead things in the woods and dead things in the water.[15]

Known Wights

A list of individual characters that have been turned into wights over the course of the series:

Quotes

“

The cold winds are rising, and men go out from their fires and never come back ... or if they do, they're not men no more, but only wights, with blue eyes and cold black hands. Why do you think I run south with Stiv and Hali and the rest of them fools?[16]